For Rousseau and Mandeville the absence of a moral instinct meant the laws of society had no moral validity, they were nothing but the inventions of the cunning and the powerful, in order to maintain or to acquire an unnatural and unjust superiority over the rest of their fellow creatures.
Gertrude HimmelfarbWithout will, without individuals, there are no heroes. But neither are there villains. And the absence of villains is as prostrating, as soul-destroying, as the absence of heroes.
Gertrude HimmelfarbIn its sentimental mode, compassion is an exercise in moral indignation, in feeling good rather than doing good ... In its unsentimental mode, compassion seeks above all to do good.
Gertrude Himmelfarb